Blackphone is now under one company’s direction, flush with $50 million in new funds

By Jason Hahn Published February 28, 2015

Blackphone — Image used with permission by copyright holder

The Blackphone, a smartphone that prioritizes privacy and security, now has a clearer future, thanks to a buyout agreement that makes enterprise privacy company Silent Circle the sole maker of the phone. Flush with $50 million in recently raised funds, Silent Circle is ready to show off “the world’s first enterprise privacy ecosystem” at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2015.

Silent Circle co-founded the Blackphone project with Geeksphone, a Spanish smartphone hardware company, in a joint venture called SGP Technologies. Under terms that were not disclosed, Silent Circle has reached a deal set to close this week that will give it 100 percent ownership stake in SGP Technologies, including the Blackphone project.

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Along with its buyout agreement with Geeksphone, Silent Circle announced that it has raised approximately $50 million in a private, common equity round to help the company step into what it calls its second stage of growth.

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“Just under a year ago, we introduced Blackphone at Mobile World Congress,” said Mike Janke, co-founder and executive chairman of Silent Circle’s board. “Since then, we’ve continued to develop new, privacy-first products for our integrated software suite as well as Blackphone, the first hardware device in our portfolio of privacy solutions.”

The $629 Blackphone began shipping last June and runs on an operating system called PrivatOS, a privacy-conscious version of Android. In October, Silent Circle revealed that it was working on a tablet called (what else) the Blacktablet, which would also run on PrivatOS.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Jason Hahn is a part-time freelance writer based in New Jersey. He earned his master's degree in journalism at Northwestern…

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